Juice wrote:Mostly vodka for me, with the occasional whiskey. My favorite every day (lol) vodka is Stoli which I will mix with pretty much anything. Red bull, Club soda, water, cranberry juice, pepsi, ginger ale, orange juice, tomato juice, etc etc etc you get the idea. My favorite vodka is stoli elit, which I drink straight, preferably with a couple of blue cheese stuffed olives, but I don't drink it very often considering they stopped carrying it in state stores, and when they did, it was >$50 a bottle. I like Jameson and Crown Royal for whiskeys, I find them both nice to shoot and to mix. Whiskey is the only liquor that I can really stand to both shoot and mix. No rum, gin very sparingly. Too many words.

I recently had the blue cheese stuffed olives in a martini! wow! what an awesome concoction that was!

Here is my experience with wine. When I started my current job (12 years ago ), I quickly realized that I don't know anything about wine, but that there will be occasions when I will be expected to bring a "good" bottle of wine (like when you get invited to a party organized by my ex-student, the wife of the heir of one of California's traditional wine empires ) or order something "good" in a restaurant. So, I decided to focus on just one country with a reasonable variety of types, tastes, etc. I was exceptionally lucky, because I chose Chile. Only later i found out that even though Chilean wines are considered reasonably "cool" in the US, because of the distrust of anything foreign that isn't French or Italian (just my theory), Chilean wines are substantially underpriced here compared to Europe (a bottle of any Casillero del Diablo would cost well over $20 in Prague, even though you get it for $9.99 here).

The good thing about Chilean wines is that the shelve containing them in a normal wine store is not particularly long, so you can become reasonably familiar with them quite soon. I think everybody can quickly find what they like. For me, it's "carmenere." (Long shory short - it's a type of wine grown pretty much only in Chile, after getting imported from France - where some disease killed almost all the grapes years later. Until just a few decades ago, it was considered a "merlot", but better. So after it was winning over the "real" merlots, suddenly the angry merlot growers "rediscovered" carmenere, so that it gets excluded from the merlot family. It may not be 100% true, but it is a nice story when you bring such a bottle to a party. )

After I got through the Chilean isle, I am now going through Spain. So far, tempranillos are by far my most favorite (out of them - "Paso a Paso" costs under $10, but it's really good IMO).

Liquors:If you are into herb liquors, you should definitely try Carsbad Becher. I'd say it tastes about 10.3 times better than the likes of Jagermeisters...I can buy it in Fayetteville, so I bet it should be available in many US states as well. Or:http://www.amazon.com/Carlsbad-Becherov ... 158&sr=1-1(even though it's now a Czech liquor, it's actually a traditional German product, stolen from them - quite sad story, actually - by the Czechs after WWII...)

By far the best bangs for the buck in this country are wines from Argentina, Spain and New Zealand.

That's a pretty broad generalization, of course. But it holds true across pretty much the whole spectrum of wines. I've had $9 Riojas and Malbecs that I'd put up against darn near any $30-$40 bottle of wine ever had. (There are, naturally, some very notable exceptions..... I'm talking to you, Mr. Cakebread and Mr. Foppoli.)

I don't drink too many mixed drinks; I usually just get good stuff on the rocks unless I'm at the bar. Right now, I'm drinking an Absolut Boston, white grape juice, and ginger ale cocktail- so refreshing after a hockey game.

LeopardLetang wrote:people were telling me i could buy sake in the liquor store. i've never tried it. what do people think of it? what about absynth that i've seen in wine and spirits recently?

I like sake. Technically a beer*, sake has a mild floral, fruity flavor that reminds some of melons. It does well with soy, ginger, and similar flavorings in Asian and Japanese cooking and works wonderfully as an ingredient in sauces and marinades. It also goes well with fish and other seafood, which is central to Japanese cooking. Good sake is drunk cold. Only the cheapo stuff is warmed. I like Momokawa sake. It’s a quality US-made sake at a reasonable price.

* Microbiologically speaking, a beer is an alcoholic beverage fermented from starch (which are converted into sugars as part of the brewing process), and a wine is an alcoholic beverage fermented from naturally-occurring sugar. Sake is made from rice (a starch), so it’s a beer. At the next level, whiskies are distilled from beers; brandies are distilled from wines.

2-3 sprigs mint muddled with a splash of bourbon (its a lot, but its the best part!!)1 tsp confectioners sugar (I prefer this to simple syrup... not sure why.)2 oz bourbon of your choice (drinking bulliet right now.)fill with crushed ice

Anyone know a decent tequila that doesn't cost a fortune? Don't drink the stuff and going to make margaritas, we used 1800 at the class. Don't want anything overly expensive, but want something that's not bankers club.

At a bar near me I made my own drinks basically that I can ask for now...I'm not sure if I created them (doubtful, there's only so many combos) but they weren't "drinks" before this anywhere that I'm aware of...

One simple one is basically Sprite and blueberry smirnoff vodka...I don't think there's anything else to it and it tastes delicious to me...The second I started at home from a Brand New song...I made it in a pint glass...a little bit of ice, I fill a little more than half the glass with Southern Comfort, add in about a shot or two of Amaretto, a splash of lime juice and if that's too strong for someone, you can add in a splash (or more) of Peach Iced Tea...delicious.

Other than that, I'll drink most things. Not a big beer snob really, I know Keystone tastes like pee...and I don't like things that are too hoppy (Hop Devil is the worst beer I've ever drank in my life, for instance)...I used to be better friends with vodka, but after high school, it really started to taste bad...I don't even like to do shots of it any more...don't care much for Gin (or its friend Tonic)...big fan of SoCo, big fan of dark rums, silver tequila, and I almost always have an "emergency" bottle of Jaegar under my bed...

Liqour and wine and mixed drinks sound fine;especially with beer chasers.I drink at home(rarely due to health constraints) and go for straight cheap vodka and 24 oz cans pf Keystone black ice(@$1.35 a can)which is a pretty good buy

mikey287 wrote:At a bar near me I made my own drinks basically that I can ask for now...I'm not sure if I created them (doubtful, there's only so many combos) but they weren't "drinks" before this anywhere that I'm aware of...

One simple one is basically Sprite and blueberry smirnoff vodka...I don't think there's anything else to it and it tastes delicious to me...The second I started at home from a Brand New song...I made it in a pint glass...a little bit of ice, I fill a little more than half the glass with Southern Comfort, add in about a shot or two of Amaretto, a splash of lime juice and if that's too strong for someone, you can add in a splash (or more) of Peach Iced Tea...delicious.

Other than that, I'll drink most things. Not a big beer snob really, I know Keystone tastes like pee...and I don't like things that are too hoppy (Hop Devil is the worst beer I've ever drank in my life, for instance)...I used to be better friends with vodka, but after high school, it really started to taste bad...I don't even like to do shots of it any more...don't care much for Gin (or its friend Tonic)...big fan of SoCo, big fan of dark rums, silver tequila, and I almost always have an "emergency" bottle of Jaegar under my bed...

Hey,just read that. I kind of like the way Keystone tastes, but I like IC also(none of the light crap of any brand)